mother of seven from arizona is due back in court I mexico. She is fighting drug trafficking charges after police accused her of trying to smuggle 12 pounds of marijuana. Abc's gio benitez has that story for us. Reporter: This morning, american citizen yannira maldonado is stuck behind bars in a mexican jail, the mother of seven charged with trafficking more than five kilos of marijuana. I know she would never do anything like this. Reporter: The 42-year-old phoenix resident and her husband gary boarded this bus in mexico on wednesday returning to the u.S. After attending a family funeral. When they got to a checkpoint near the city of hermosillo, they inspected the bus and police say they found 12 pounds of drugs under maldonado's seat. I want my mom home. Please. I just want her home. Reporter: The family says mexican police first arrested maldonado's husband for the drugs then later changed their minds and arrested her. We have no need to do an like that. Logic tells you this is a frame setup. Reporter: Her husband says he offered to pay the judge $5,000 because he says the soldiers told him that's how earth works in mexico. I don't think it really matters anymore who put it there, what happened, what they're trying to get, how much money, it's not about that to me anymore. I mean, who cares? Just bring her back. Let her come home. Reporter: Maldonado spent the in court tuesday but no decision was made about her future. Just back from mexico, maldonado's daughter says she can visit her mother but only separated by jailhouse bars. She held my hand and she told me that everything was going to be okay. Reporter: And maldonado will be in court again today. No word yet on whether she'll be released. Overnight mexican officials told abc news she has the right to a defense attorney and due process but, robin, this is a possible ten-year prison sentence. A lot of people are watching this. Gio, thank you. Let's bring in dan abrams and get more. You can understand why gary maldonado offered to pay that $5,000. May have been a big mistake. The notion that mexican authorities are assuring her she's got a right to due process is little comfort to her. The issue of the bribe. This is what the family is saying this is all about. If you're sitting on a bus and the next thing you know you're taken off the bus and swung is accusing you of having 12 pounds -- that's a big, big, you know, container, of marijuana, and then they say, well, you know what, you got to pay us off, you canunderstand their initial reaction is wait a second, these guys are asking for money. You have to be careful here. You don't want to make the authorities dig their heels in and say this is true, back it up with more invented evidence, et cetera, so they have to walk a fine line here between being very firm, telling the truth about what happened and yet not going too far. This is not just a legal case, though. You have a u.S. Senator involved and the state department involved. I think this will be resolved diplomatically. This is too high a level. Too much publicity. We're talking about it. Others are talking about it. This is not going to be the sort of thing that's just going to be determined at a local level in mexico. This is going to be determined at the highest level of government to assess whether the family was framed here.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

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